Saturday, March 26, 2016

Camp Videogamely

Last year, here in Tucson, Arizona, I helped run a convention quite unlike any other convention before it. It was part gaming convention, part talk show, part alternate reality experience, part concert, and part summer camp.

We're doing something like it again this year, hopefully. We're kickstarting it, so whether or not it happens depends on if the project gets funded.

Today I'm going to talk briefly about why you, the person reading this, should attend this convention.
Last year's convention was very EarthBound-based, which may have steered non-EB fans away from the experience. I can understand this, though I don't think a lack of interest or experience with EarthBound seriously impacts the value of the experience.

This is one reason you may notice that the theme of Camp Videogamely is not explicitly stated. Really, we're selling an experience more than anything. Yes, there will be video games there, and yes likely there will be some blurring of the lines between this world and another, but the ability to enjoy this experience will not be predicated on your familiarity with whatever world we'll be colliding with.

It's also worth noting that last year's convention is an experience that simply will not happen again. I don't think we could recreate that experience again if we tried--at least, not with any sincerity. There were a lot of performances at the last convention, but they were genuine performances, mostly improvised on the spot, and with a story that only loosely existed before it happened.

So, when I say that the next convention will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, I want you to understand what I mean. This is an experience that will never happen again. There may or may not be other Fangamer-run conventions in the future, but they will never be the same from year to year.

I'll admit, we're asking a lot of people to trust that this thing we're doing will be worth the ticket price, worth the travel to Tucson, worth a weekend of your life. I think it will be, though. Attendees of last year's convention are still raving about it. Barely a week goes by that I don't see someone on Twitter reminiscing their time here in our world.

Our convention is very small. While other conventions boast thousands or attendees, we boast hundreds. This makes our convention very personal: you get to know pretty much everyone, you get to see almost everything, and you get the chance to get right up close to everything that's going to happen.

Together we'll build a world apart from our own, live in another reality for a weekend. Come, join us, and let us show you what a convention can be.